Posted 5/12/16

Share +

About the cover

Issue IV, April 2016

It’s fun drawing plants, to get into their mindset. If I was a plant, how would I be growing?

Christie drew our remarkable cover after first illustrating a story about a writer’s journey to the blackened and burnt Methow Valley, where author Thor Hanson participated in a seed mob–and then took some of those seeds back to the San Juans to watch them grow on a tray in his office. Tiny seed shoots turned into an idea to illustrate this cover, which teases stories found elsewhere inside Ampersand: bees, pikas, a farm in Pierce County and the work of artist Alfredo Arregiun (that’s him, upper right). Christie was a natural fit for our magazine that embraces creativity and innovation in the Pacific Northwest. That’s creativity and innovation found in the built world as well in the natural world–sometimes, espoused by the critters themselves.

Christie is an animator and an illustrator who lives and works on Whidbey Island. He creates stories through hand-made images. His work has been featured in The New York Times, The Huffington Post, The Atlantic, Drawn, Cartoon Brew, Boooooooom! and Juxtapoz among other sites. He makes short films, music videos, commercials, cartoons, books, zines and relief prints. More of his work can be found here.

Comments

Related Perspectives — Issue IV

A scientific exploration about the season of spring. An essay about rebirth in the Methow. Photos of the charismatic pika. An ode to bees. Gorgeous landscape paintings. And, more.

Spring is a noisy time in the Northwest. Marshes reverberate with the croak of frogs. The woods fill with the twitter of birds. Even the forest floor seems to hum with the white splashes of flowers. After months of long nights and gray days, Nature greets the sun with a shout. Come along for a brief sampling of spring awakenings, both loud and quiet.

If the polar bear ever needed relief as the stricken planet’s most preemptively mourned victim of ecological disaster, the American pika has stood with apparent readiness to accept the nomination. The diminutive, rock-dwelling cousin of the rabbit certainly delivers the cuteness factor writes Glenn Nelson.